The use of fire to preserve biodiversity under novel fire regimes.

Novel fire regimes are emerging worldwide and pose substantial challenges to biodiversity conservation. Addressing these challenges and mitigating their impacts on biodiversity will require developing a wide range of fire management practices. In this paper, we leverage research across taxa, ecosystems and continents to highlight strategies for applying fire knowledge in biodiversity conservation.

Water availability and biological interactions shape amphibian abundance and diversity in Mediterranean temporary rivers.

Amphibians, the most threatened vertebrates globally, face risks due to climate change, habitat loss, and fragmentation. Their sensitivity to environmental changes highlights their importance as ecological indicators. Temporary rivers, influenced by geological, climatic, and anthropogenic factors, play a critical role in shaping biodiversity and community structure.

Assessing the role of habitat, climate, and anthropization gradients on terrestrial mammal diversity in the western Mediterranean basin.

Mammal species globally exhibit distribution patterns conditioned by environmental conditions and human impact. The Mediterranean basin provides an ideal system to study these effects due to its diverse climate, and habitat conditions. In this work, we aim to assess the impact of landscape heterogeneity and anthropization degree on terrestrial mammal diversity in this region.

Long-interval effects of wildfires on the functional diversity of land snails.

In fire-prone regions, fire is a major natural disturbance which shapes ecosystem function and community composition. Fire has a direct and dramatic effect on soil fauna and, especially, on non-mobile species such as land snails. The factors that make the Mediterranean Basin a fire-prone region may also lead to the appearance after fires of certain functional traits related to ecological and physiological characteristics.

A comprehensive but practical methodology for selecting biological indicators for long-term monitoring.

The selection of the many biological indicators described in scientific literature is rarely based on systematic or clear-cut processes, and often takes into account only a single or very few taxa, or even disregards the complex interactions that exist between the components of biodiversity. In certain cases, the particular context of a site-for example in the Mediterranean Basin-makes it difficult to apply the choice of indicators to other regions proposed in the literature. Therefore, the selection of appropriate methodologies for generating relevant indicators for a particular site is of crucial importance.

Aridity influences the recovery of vegetation and shrubland birds after wildfire.

Wildfires play a determining role in the composition and structure of many plant and animal communities. On the other hand, climate change is considered to be a major driver of current and future fire regime changes. Despite increases in drought in many areas of the world, the effects of aridity on post-fire colonization by animals have been rarely addressed.